


Bleeding through the Universe

by britishparty



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Self-Harm, but not in a depressed context
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-24
Updated: 2016-05-24
Packaged: 2018-06-10 13:14:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6957907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/britishparty/pseuds/britishparty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John deviates from Terezi's original plan instead of going through with the ret-con. He finds he's not quite as good as reconstructing the universe as he'd like.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bleeding through the Universe

Sometimes things leak out, like the universe is  _bleeding_ , and you stop and wonder if, somehow, it's all your convoluted, fucked-up fault. 

Yeah, it probably is.

It probably is your fault that you've taken up the unofficial post of therapist for your friends.

It  _ used _ to be Rose's job. Then the universe fell apart, and you put it back together, and somewhere along the lines an old habit must have slipped in, because now she's as bad an alcoholic as her mother and refuses to quit.

Just like Jade  _ used _ to be the one who wrote dreamy poetry and went cloud gazing. You guess your power couldn't transcend the green sun completely; Jade comes to you now when she wakes screaming from nightmares of green fire and Bec’s wide, gaping jaws, and she can hardly ever sleep through her terrible anxiety and newfound paranoia.

And maybe their problems are actually worse, but you're so much more distraught over Dave. It might be because he's the one who remembers it best - that is, to say, he remembers the dreams most vividly.

He remembers dying.

You always feel bad when he brings that up. He died a lot; you couldn't really have stopped it, but you should have paid him some special heed when you stuck all the pieces of the universe back in different places.

The only thing that reminds you of how  _ real _ it was, of how you almost lost everything, is the scarf still covered in the bloody blue scrawls of handwriting you didn't look at, and the set of disgustingly blue pajamas folded into the bottom of your closet, where your dad would never find them.

You'd ignored Terezi’s instructions. You ran all the way back to your world, and stole your copy of Sburb, and Jade's, and Rose's, and Dave's. You destroyed them; you could protect them this way, you knew you could.

Never mind the fact that you can still feel the wind swirling between your fingertips as soon as you reach for it; never mind that you've accidentally jumped a few years here and there. You always manage to jump back.

It doesn't make it any easier to breathe when you get a rapid-fire barrage of messages from Dave.

 

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering ectoBiologist [EB] at 19:37 --

TG: john you here dude im freaking out

TG: the level of fucking freak that could normally only be achieved by a bespectacled dork in front of a sweaty long-haired nic cage

TG: seriously man now is not the time to be doing something else you motherfucker

TG: john? have you been kidnapped by your dad or some shit to go bake

EB: hey, sorry dave.

EB: what's up? missing me already?

TG: you wish loser

TG: nah my issues a little more freak-out worthy than a little loneliness

EB: heh, based on the average emotional range of a strider, maybe not. but what's bothering you?

TG: okay so this is gonna sound weird

TG: but i have a tattoo i never got

TG: and don't give me that “were you drinking or high” shit rose already did that

TG: while drunk im pretty sure

 

You want to slam your face into your keyboard. However, you're better at typing with your fingers than your nose, so instead you try to calm your rising worry and plunk away at your ancient keyboard.

 

EB: sounds freaky dude. what's the tat of?

 

You're pretty sure you know.

 

TG: tally marks. like really what the fuck? what are they fucking supposed to mean?

EB: dude that does sound really weird. are you sure you didn't get drunk and not wanna forget something you did?

TG: cmon egbert i know im cool but striders dont drink not even ironically

TG: i counted them. theres a lot of these motherfuckers on the back of my shoulder

TG: dunno how the fuck i missed it before

 

You don't want to ask how many there are.

 

EB: does the number of them mean anything to you?

TG: dude, i dont think the number 53 means jack shit to anybody

TG: except maybe old ladies lining up to fucking play bingo on friday in a church hall on the real shady side of town

 

Fifty-three. You knew he'd tell you the number without having to ask. But still, you sit there as he rambles on.  _ Fifty-three _ ? How the hell did he count that many tally marks? How the hell did he  _ get _ that many tallies?

 

TG: theyre real fucking small and shit

TG: i had to get bro to count them for me

TG: he looked at me real weird and asked why i didn't know how many tally marks were on my own goddamn back tattoo

TG: i just played it off and said that i went back to get another line added every once in a while and i didnt know how many there were by now

TG: which of course meant he asked me what they stood for

TG: so i just told him to fuck off and count the goddamn tats and leave me to my tatted lonesome

TG: john i know you love to listen to me ramble but dude where the fuck are you

EB: sorry dave, that's just weird, y’know?

TG: yeah bro i do know that's why im quietly freaking out over in my goddamn southern cesspool of weird

 

You don't really know what to say. You know what the tallies mean, of course you do, but you don't want to tell him. How would you tell him, anyway? Mention a casual  _ Hey Dave, sorry that this might be a traumatic thing to mention, but those tats? They're totally a marker of how many times you ran into a dead body of yourself in a different timeline where we went off to become gods, and the tats are in place of a scar where you used to scratch the tally marks into your own flesh? _

 

EB: well do you hate the marks or anything? you gonna get them removed?

TG: nah man

TG: i thought about it but it just didn't sit right yknow? like this shit was important and i couldn't believe i was forgetting

 

Of course it was important, it was the number he'd  _ carved into his own skin _ , the number of  _ his own corpses _ he'd seen in his travels. You didn't think for a fucking second that any Dave Strider in any universe would get rid of that mark willingly.

Even Davesprite had had the marks on him, in whatever splintered future he was from. He'd scarred the marks into the bare skin of his back so deeply that you could see them, outlined in the faint glow of his orange skin.

 

EB: maybe forgetting isn't so bad. maybe you were never meant to remember

TG: dude thats getting into some jade-league shit right there, all fucking fate and predestiny and shit

EB: you know i’m just joking, right dave? i'm sure you'll remember eventually! in the meantime just try to keep cool about them, i guess?

 

You don't want him to remember. You definitely don't want Dave Strider to remember him the way you still can, the way you're fairly sure is burned into your mind's eye as though you were a Seer yourself; caught between a white blade and a black blade, desperately trying to fight for Jade. You can see him block, turn to strike, his eyes flicking towards Jade for a second too long -

You flinch as the swords pierce through his chest, and his grip goes limp. You squeeze your eyes shut but that doesn't stop the rush of blood you can see, the way any noise is choked in his throat.

You can see the way his shades slip from his face, revealing too-wide, red eyes, the way the sunglasses fall to the ground.

You're pulled out of the horrifying vision with such a lurch that you almost feel sick; your computer dings at you with a familiar, comforting alert.

 

TG: sometimes it just feels like ive forgotten something unforgettable

TG: jade and rose agree bro

TG: im starting to think you like drugged us all over the internet and threw a huge party and i did something really dumb like agree to play strip poker with rose in front of you

TG: i mean ive played strip p with rose before and she kicked my ass but it wasn't so bad because it was just the two of us and she told me to keep my clothes on because she wasnt feeling up for a show

TG: and i could totally give a show man you have no idea what kind of ironic things a good strider picks up in this household

TG: but we all just get the sense we're like missing out on the party of our fucking lives and we were supposed to get invitations but jades weird ass dog stole them or something

TG: she told me he used to do that with her motherfucking pumpkins a ton

TG: steal em and like hide them in a fucking cave or some shit and make her get them back like the weirdest indiana jones youve ever seen

TG: okay john seriously give me something to work with here im digging my own grave

EB: all stripping aside

EB: (not that a show wouldn't be great if i'm ever in need of a pick-me-up)

EB: i don't think you need to worry about having forgotten anything? because i think we're all feeling like that and if it's gonna work itself out it will

 

You  _ totally _ didn't get distracted when Dave mentioned strip poker, shut up, but you really hope you're not coming off as too destiny-y. You're trying to shut out the tiny voice that tells you this is exactly how Jade used to sound before you broke her when you were trying to fit the world back together.

 

TG: dude we dont even know what happened to us

TG: we just all woke up one morning and started talking because we all felt different

TG: jade never had anxiety and rose wasnt an alcoholic

TG: and i didnt have tats

TG: its like someone rewrote our script, you get what i mean?

 

Yeah, that sounds about right. You'd broken the universe and stuffed the shattered pieces back into the life you'd lived before any of you started up Sburb. You rewrote the entire script of the universe and now your friends were suffering because apparently you were one hell of a shitty writer. The fact that all four of you acted like sixteen year olds was one of the more minor details; all three of your friends spoke of missing out, as if they'd skipped over something.

 

TG: also bro told me that he dreamed about being stabbed and i was there

TG: and i had a fucking dream about finding him dead

EB: dave

TG: john no im serious now

TG: the shades are off man im not being ironically unironic anymore

TG: what happened to us

 

You don't want to tell him. Your name is John Egbert, you're sixteen years old, and you're pretty sure you fucked up your universe. And you don't wanna tell your best friend.

Breathe in, out. You pull on the air and a breeze starts in response; it rustles through the leaves of the tree outside your window. You think you can hear, faintly, the sound of a quiet organ song.

You should tell them.

 

EB: i dunno, dave, this all sounds really weird to me.

 

Goddammit.

 

TG: no john youre the only one not freaking out

TG: you havent changed at all

TG: which means you must understand something about whatever the fuck is happening to us

EB: im just as clueless as you guys

EB: except… maybe i do notice sometimes that it feels like there are gaps? like stuff doesn't quite fit together

 

And it's true, you have noticed things. You're aging faster than you did the first time - perhaps because your body already knows what it's going to become. You notice sometimes that you'll imagine a loud voice, grey skin, blue blood. You'd hoped your friends would forget the trolls entirely, and while Rose and Jade are clueless, Dave remembers better than you'd hoped.

You suppose that it's a given a Knight of Time would hold onto a broken timeline so much better.

 

TG: whatever man

TG: you know something like the way jade used to know things

TG: and maybe i thought you'd be better than jade and tell us something

TG: but nope youre giving us just as many riddles as she did

TG: im gonna go talk to her and see how shes holding up

TG: since apparently john fucking egbert doesnt know what fucked up all his friends

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering ectoBiologist [EB] at 19:58 --

 

Fuck.

Dammit.

You plink away at your keyboard, sending a few more messages that you hope don't sound too desperate.

Well. Your fingers pause.

You suppose he’s right, isn’t he?

You scroll back up and glance again at the lines you’d written, telling him not to worry, just to hold on, that everything would be fine. You sound every bit as naïve as Jade did, and just as dreamy and hopeful. Your words make less sense than hers, if that’s even possible.

Well, hey, new universe, new timeline. Anything’s possible now, right?

You try to ignore the niggling feeling of guilt you have, and you put your computer to sleep and make your way downstairs. You can smell cupcakes from the stairway.

Sure enough, your dad’s cooking in the kitchen. He greets you quietly. You think, sometimes, that he didn’t forget anything from the last timeline. He treats you as though you were older, and he carries himself with a new kind of stance that makes you worry. It’s like he’s limping, but he never shows pain.

You think that  _ bleeding _ was perhaps an overly accurate term for the cracks in your new universe.

You sit near him while he bakes. You can’t stand the treats, but sometimes you like to just appreciate his safety. You’ll never tell him about the nightmares you have of him dying. Luckily, though, with every moment you spend around him, the universe-that-never-was becomes easier to forget.

It’s like learning to deal with loss all over again - except this time, you’re not sure what you’re mourning.

He finishes baking, and you talk softly for a while, then go and watch some of the shitty movies you can’t believe you used to be so taken with. He joins you briefly, before disappearing into his bedroom - the bedroom that you totally have never been in.

There’s nothing left to procrastinate over anymore, so you wander back up to your room and revive your computer. There’s a message from Dave from about an hour ago, sitting unopened on Pesterchum.

 

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering ectoBiologist [EB] at 21:46 --

TG: john?

TG: god you better fucking answer shithead

TG: i need help

TG: jade said something about a place called prospit and then i thought of derse and i dont know whats going on anymore

TG: i think im hallucinating

TG: i woke up and everything was purple and i was in fucking pajamas man i dont even own pajamas

TG: john get your ass over here

 

You swallow. Of  _ course _ , you’re an idiot. Getting rid of your copies of Sburb didn’t get rid of your dream selves on Derse and Prospit. They’ll still wake up, still follow the same paths. Is there no way to stop this goddamn trainwreck from ever starting?

 

EB: dave, you have to promise not to freak out.

 

Though he’d been messaging you an hour ago, you hope he still gets the message. Sure enough, a reply bubble pops up not even a full minute later.

 

TG: too late

EB: you need to focus

EB: hold a really strong phrase in your mind, something that relates to you right now, then tell me what it is

TG: dude im not in the mood for fucking magic tricks

EB: just do it. please.

TG: fine

TG: the cats pajamas

EB: that’s your phrase?

TG: yeah what of it

EB: nothing

 

You breathe in, and out. The wind rises and batters against your window frame, rattling it. It’s been a while since you did this. You focus, breathe in, out. You half-expect it to be gradual, like fading, but there’s a faint  _ pop _ and suddenly the atmosphere feels different.

“What the fuck?” The voice is low, harsh, and suddenly there’s something sharp at your throat and your eyes fly open as you duck on instinct, wind snapping out and breaking the blade in half.

“What the  _ FUCK _ ?” The voice repeats, louder now, and you’re staring at a dim, warped reflection of your own face in a pair of shades you faintly recognize.

“Dave,” you start, and he jumps out of his skin, leaping backwards. It almost hurts you to see how defensive he is.

“Who the fuck are you?” He practically snarls. “And where the  _ fuck _ did you come from?”

“Dave, it’s me, John,” you say, and he freezes.

“How the hell did you get here?” He asks cautiously.

You relax your fighting stance, and shrug. “You asked me to. The cat’s pajamas.”

He stares at you from behind his shades, and you realize suddenly that  _ over here _ could simply have meant  _ online _ , not  _ my house _ .

You hardly manage to catch the hurt on his face before it’s gone, replaced with rage.

“You  _ asshole _ ,” he snarls, lunging aimlessly at you - and missing - with the broken sword hilt. “We’re suffering, and you’re over here with fucking  _ teleportation _ ? And you have  _ no idea _ what happened to us?”

“You  _ died _ ,” you snap, your voice harsh and grating even to your own ears. “You all fucking  _ died _ because of that fucking game and I  _ saved _ you.”

And oh shit, you hadn’t meant to say that but it’s out there now. The words drop heavy, sinking like stones in the following silence.

“Oh,” he says.

You briefly consider stepping back in time and stopping yourself from showing up here at all.

The idea doesn’t appeal to you.

“You couldn’t be content, could you?” You say, and though you meant the words to be harsh, they’re soft and defeated. “You had to be all heroic, Dave, you had to be the fucking Knight and then you were the Hero of Time, too, so you’re all heroic and knightly and then you just have to be able to remember it all.”

He opens his mouth to respond but oh no, you’re on a roll right now. Your voice gets louder, sharper, as you continue.

“And here I am, the fucking Heir of  _ Breath _ , that’s right, my power is I get to  _ breathe _ even when I don’t want to, I get to keep fucking breathing when you stop, so I get to go back and change everything and do a really bad job and fuck all of you up. I think I may as well call myself a Seer because all I can do is see you dying, over and over and I can’t do anything to stop it because I already have, I erased your deaths,” and now you’re gasping for air but you won’t stop talking, because he needs to hear it.

“John,” he says, and his voice alone is a warning.

“You were so powerful, Dave, you all were, and you were so  _ happy _ , and I took it and I  _ hurt _ you because I thought I could help -”

The tears running down your face don’t stop the guilt, don’t stop the words.

“John,” he repeats, and he reaches out and grabs your arms. It’s awkward, because you know Dave doesn’t understand how normal interaction works, but the tiny point of contact is enough to ground you.

Even though it grounds you, all that really does is slam all your words into your stomach like a fist and make you curl up and sob into the denim of your jeans.

Dave sits beside you. He pushes his shades up onto his head and holds onto your arm as you cry, and you sit there in silence for a while.

“So do you know what to do now?” He asks quietly, when you’ve calmed down a little.

“No,” you say, honestly, and sniff.

“You gotta find a way to save us that doesn’t fucking involve rerolling it back this far, dude,” he says.

You stare at him with tired eyes. “That’ll doom you all. I don’t even know if I  _ can _ .”

“Look, bro, I’m a Knight so I’m all heroic and shit, you said so yourself. You don’t need to worry about me. Go save future-god me.”

The worst part about this is you know he’s telling the truth. One thing you know about Dave, without a doubt, is the fact that he’s willing to sacrifice himself to save the alpha timeline - which, in this case, he’s willing to die to rewrite.

The tattoos you can see on his shoulder, uncovered by his tank top, are evidence of that more than anything else.

So though it  _ aches _ , raw and hurt and you hate this, you get up.

And you turn to look at him.

His eyes are red. Red and - and you're not sure what else there is, but there's something between hurt and comfort and you can't bear to look at him anymore.

So you don't.

You turn around, and force a bright tone into your voice.

“Best be on my way, then!” You trill, too upbeat for the silence and the rush of cars outside his window and the stifling Texas heat.

“Will you be okay?” He asks. “I mean, is this even possible?”

There's no worry in his tone, though you almost wish there was.

“Of course it is,” you say, and grin back at him. It stretches the corners of your mouth uncomfortably. “I've just gotta go punch myself in the face before anything goes wrong.”

“Good luck,” he says quietly.

You turn to look at him, and instantly you regret it. He looks like an abandoned puppy.

“Sorry,” you say.

“I'm a Hero of Time,” he replies. “I'm in a doomed timeline, John. That's what the scars are, right? All the me’s that didn't work out.”

You try not to wince. “Yeah,” you say. “An homage to all your deaths.”

“So go punch yourself,” he says, and falls silence, like he's waiting to disappear as soon as you leave.

He's treating this like it's your story, like he's only a side character with a minor arc, and it hurts.

You reach for him and grab his hand blindly. You should contact your friends before you do this, but you're fairly sure you can make it without their help.

So you pull him towards you and vanish.

He staggers into an unfamiliar room, unbalanced and landing on his stomach.

You see a bookshelf, a basket of purple yarn, the glow of a computer screen.

“What the  _ hell _ ?” A girl's voice cries out.

“John, Dave,” you say, gesturing first at yourself then at him. You reach out and grab Rose by the forearm. “No time, I'm hurrying here.” You grab Dave's foot from where he lies unmoving on the floor, and tip yourself forward.

_ Pop _ . Together, all three of you blink out of existence.

You release Dave and Rose in time to catch yourself as all three of you tumble out of the air two feet above Jade's floor. You do a forward somersault and float six inches off the ground. You look cool. At least, you're pretty sure you do.

They're not so fortunate, lying sprawled across Jade's floor. Rose starts moving, but Dave's still facedown. You don't really expect much else.

“Rose? Dave?  _ John _ ?” Jade's quick on the uptake, realizing who you are almost immediately. But why did you come last?

You look down at yourself. Somewhere along the way you must have accidentally materialized into your god pajamas. Man, you hated these things, but now that you're going back to the future they might be kinda necessary.

“I brought you some company,” you gabble quickly. “End of this timeline is coming soon, I'm from an alternate reality where we're all gods, you all died so I rerolled and stopped us from going, now I have to go fix it and that means you're all screwed.”

“John,” Rose starts and  _ oh no it's the question voice _ so you start backing away. “You can't just say all this and run.”

“Blame Dave,” you say. “He convinced me to go back and save all your future asses.”

There's a squawk of protest from Dave on the floor, and he starts to scramble up.

You take the time to close your eyes, breathe in and out, and disappear.

You arrive just in time to see Terezi hold out a red scarf covered in a bright teal scrawl.

“No!” You cry, and reach forward to grab it. You clutch it against your chest. You can still fix this.

You-from-the-past looks towards you sharply, startled. “Go save your friends,” you tell yourself-from-the-past. “You weren’t going to follow Terezi’s instructions anyway, so give them to me.”

Thank god you-from-the-past is an idiot. He steps back and vanishes without much argument.

Terezi stares at you dumbly - or at least you think she does, her eyes are covered. “John?” She says.

“Yeah, I’m me, from a few years in the future. I didn’t listen to you, yadda yadda, I’m an asshole. I’m actually going to follow your instructions this time,” you say quickly.

You can see her outline in chalk on the ground behind her. It makes you sick to your very core.

“I have something very important to tell you,” she announces, standing up a little straighter. “But I’m about to die, so come here.”

You lean in close, your ear beside her mouth.

Her voice drops to a whisper. “I can hear the universe,” she says softly. “It says you’re a dork.”

Then she licks your ear.

And dies.

It’s perhaps the most dramatic death yet. 

You clutch the scarf. It’s a good thing you didn’t go back for the one you had in the world you just left behind - it doesn’t exist anymore.

You read the first word, turn on your heel, and vanish.

 

It’s a few days later when you first see your friends again.

You give Terezi a high-five, Rose and Jade a hug, and then you burst into tears on Dave’s shoulder. No one understands, but Dave pats your back sympathetically and Terezi laughs at you.

When you’re done crying, you pull yourself together and then you take your shirt off. You ask Dave to make one tally on your shoulder.

He blinks in surprise.

“John, bro, nice to know you support me but that’s my shtick,” he says cautiously. “I’m the time traveler, remember?”

“I know,” you say. “But I met an alternate version of who you was doomed. So now I need a tally.”

He tries to tell you he’ll put it on his own back, but you refuse. Eventually there’s the sharp metal of his knife down your shoulder, and Jane heals it - not carefully, you tell her to leave a messy scar, but at least the wound’s closed.

“Fifty-four,” you say as you put your shirt back on, and he stares at you.

“I didn’t count,” he says. “I swore to myself I never would.”

“You got your brother to do it,” you tell him.

“Huh.”

Neither of you mention the fact that it isn't your first tally.


End file.
